The Brothers Karamazov

Chapter 9: Psychology at Full Steam. The Galloping Troika. The Finale of the Prosecutor’s Speech

Having come thus far in his speech, Ippolit Kirillovich, who had evidently chosen a strictly historical method of accounting, which is a favorite resort of all nervous orators who purposely seek a strict framework in order to restrain their own impatient zeal—Ippolit Kirillovich expanded particularly on the “former” and “indisputable” one, and on this topic expressed several rather amusing thoughts. “Karamazov, who was jealous of everyone to the point of frenzy, suddenly and instantly collapses and vanishes, as it were, before the ‘former’ and ‘indisputable’ one. And it is all the more strange in that previously he had paid almost no attention to this new threat to himself, coming in the person of this, for him, unexpected rival. But his notion had always been that it was all still very far off, and a Karamazov always lives in the present moment. Most likely he even considered him a fiction. But having understood at once in his sick heart that the woman had perhaps been concealing this new rival, that she had deceived him that same day, precisely because this newly emerged rival, so far from being a fantasy or a fiction, constituted all for her— all her hopes in life—having instantly understood this, he resigned himself. Indeed, gentlemen of the jury, I cannot pass over in silence this sudden streak in the soul of the defendant, who seemed to be totally incapable of manifesting it; there suddenly arose in him an inexorable need for truth, a respect for woman, an acknowledgement of the rights of her heart, and when?—at the very moment when, because of her, he had stained his hands with his father’s blood! It is also true that the spilt blood was at that moment already crying out for revenge, for he, having ruined his soul and all his earthly destiny, could not help feeling and asking himself at the same time: ‘What does he mean and what could he mean now to her, to this being whom he loved more than his own soul, compared with this “former” and “indisputable” one, who had repented and returned to the woman he had ruined once, with new love, with honest offers, with the promise of a restored and now happy life? And he, unfortunate man, what could he give her now, what could he offer her?’ Karamazov understood it all, he understood that all paths were closed to him by his crime, and that he was just a criminal under sentence and not a man with a life ahead of him! This thought crushed and destroyed him. And so he instantly fixes on a wild plan that, considering Karamazov’s character, could not but seem to him the only and fatal way out of his terrible situation. This way out was suicide. He runs for his pistols, which he had pawned to the official Perkhotin, and at the same time, as he runs, he pulls all his money out of his pocket, for which he had just spattered his hands with his father’s blood. Oh, money is what he needs most of all now: Karamazov dies, Karamazov shoots himself, this will be remembered! Not for nothing are we a poet, not for nothing have we been burning our life like a candle at both ends. ‘To her, to her—and there, there I will put on a feast, a feast such as the world has never seen, to be remembered and talked about long after. Amid wild shouts, mad gypsy singing and dancing, we will raise a cup and toast the new happiness of the woman we adore, and then—right there, at her feet, we will blow our brains out before her, and punish our life! Some day she will remember Mitya Karamazov, she will see how Mitya loved her, she will feel sorry for Mitya! ‘ There is a good deal of posturing here, of romantic frenzy, of wild Karamazovian unrestraint and sentimentality—yes, and also something else, gentlemen of the jury, something that cries out in the soul, that throbs incessantly in his mind, and poisons his heart unto death; this something is conscience, gentlemen of the jury, the judgment, the terrible pangs of conscience! But the pistol will reconcile everything, the pistol is the only way out, there is no other, and beyond—I do not know whether Karamazov thought at that moment of ‘what lies beyond’^[344] or whether a Karamazov could think, in Hamlet fashion, of what lies beyond. No, gentlemen of the jury, they have their Hamlets, but so far we have only Karamazovs!”